This invention is a modification and improvement of the invention disclosed and claimed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,425,792, which issued on Jun. 20, 1995. The disclosure of U.S. Pat. No. 5,425,792 is specifically incorporated by reference in its entirety. U.S. Pat. No. 5,425,792 discloses a method and apparatus for producing syngas using an oxy-fuel burner to volatize the organic feed materials. The products associated with the gasification reactor can be generally described as syngas and residual ash.
The energy requirements of the gasification reactor are substantial, and disposal of the residual ash may pose an environmental problem. This ash product needs to be handled in an environmentally safe and economically efficient manner. Simply dumping it in a landfill may not be an environmentally viable solution, but one way to solve the problem is to vitrify the ash to form a commercial glass or frit product. However, vitrifying processes create other problems, such as high energy requirements and potentially polluting exhaust gases. Therefore, a need exists to find a way to lower the energy requirements of the gasification reactor and to find a way to safely and efficiently handle the residual ash, preferably by converting it into a commercial product.